I was able to grind my mining in the effort of a couple days from 1 all the way to 310.
    Update: 70 rogue... added Great spot for adamantite
        i grinded from 310 all the way to 375 in hellfire penninsula and was 375 before lvl 62..
        You should be able to get 375 from questing there, if not, Zangamarsh has a good amount of Fel Iron Ore, and Terrokar has both Fel Iron and Adamantite.

Here's How I did it (54 Rogue) Horde

First off, before you try this method, download the addon called Gatherer. it will make a spot on the map for you of your mined veins. once a vein is mined it will spawn at a later time. Gatherer is important for what i call, Path Mining

Path Mining- In order to be efficient and fast at leveling mining, you must use gatherer to collect all mined veins in the area you are at. once you have combed at least half the zone of its metals, select a starting point on you map where there is a good amount of ore. then, try and hit all of the other veins in a circle pattern so you end up where you started. if you have a big enough path, enough time will go by  for the original ore sources to sprout again, thus allowing you to hit the path again. paths are always in a circular pattern, or at least a shape of some sort (rectangle, triangle, whatever)

**Also Note- Rare minerals like Silver, Gold and Truesilver spawn where their perspective ores spawn. Each time a node spawns, it has a chance to be it's rare mineral.
    -Tin = Silver
    -Iron = Gold
    -Mithril = Truesilver
    -Fel Iron+Adamantite = Khorium
      Eternium seems to be a random drop in Khorium, Adamantite and Fel Iron veins
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Now to the places i mined the most efficiently (ALSO, I ADDED ADAMANTITE FARMING AREA)
____________________________________________________________________________________________
For Copper
    -Durotar, right outside Orgrimmar there are tons of copper veins everywhere.
    -Also, the hills outside of Silvermoon and along the scar have Copper veins in plenty, but not near as much as the mountains surrounding Ogrimmar

For Tin (Silver)
    -STV, there is a little to be found around north STV
    -Ghostlands, Search along the scar going back and forth
    -Thousand needles (my reccommendation) Tons of Copper, tin and Iron veins here. just let gatherer do its job and make a set path. (Make sure to check any spot including the edges, with rocks and or mountains portruding. just look at your map.)

For Iron (Gold)
    -For lower levels, stick to Thousand needles if you have found a path with iron in it.
    -Badlands, around the middle and not along the edges. Try to hit all of the large mountains in the middle areas of the map.
    -STV, not very much here, but look for it as you quest.

For Mithril (Truesilver)
    -Badlands, make a complete circle on the edges of the map where the mountains surrounding Badlands are. There is so much Ore, and Truesilver spawns a lot here. This is a path that will take a while to complete, and all of the ore will be back by the time you come to where you started. ( I start directly in front of the flight path going towards the giant humanoid camp and follow the edges hitting all the veins. I stealthed past the elite dragons on the far east side. a lot of mithril veins sprout here.)
    -Tanaris, mithril is mostly found along the south and southwest corners of the map, along with the insect lairs. one small thorium vein always spawns in the exact part of the southwest corner. (Not the ideal place for mithril, but the second best)

For Thorium
    -Ungorro Crater, this is the best place(lower level mobs, and is shaped like a giant circle which is ideal for path mining). you must take time to search all the edges, the entire gorrilla cave, the firey mountain in the middle and the insect lair. once gatherer has noted all these spots, set up a path for you to take, and do it over and over again. this should get you to 300 in a couple of hours if you are grinding from 230-250. but it depends on how well you can PvE, because most of these veins are surrounded by 1-2 mobs.

Fel Iron
    -The best place is Hellfire Penninsula. Just look in any mountainous area, and get a path going. you should be at 340-350 by the time you leave from questing. also, it is scattered around Zangamarsh. but mostly on the edges of the map.

Adamantite
    -Ok, this one goes out to all of those people who have their flying mount!!!
Nagrand is by far the best place to get this stuff by the handfulls. Just mount up, fly around the caves, in the lakes and all along the edges to get a path for this going. with 2 hours of farming you can have yourself 200+ ada ore, and if you're a JC like me, that means tons of blue gems within two hours!!! of course this is for those with epic flyers. with the normal mount it might take you a bit longer... i predict 80 ore to every 2 hours if you dont have epic mount. just make sure to come here at night or even later, because this is a popular spot, and you will be ganked 5+ times for every 2 hours of farming

    Blades Edge is also a good spot if you need adamantite. there are also a few spread out fel iron veins to be found here. This spot can be useful and great if Nagrand is currently being looted by alli or horde at a high rate... i suggest that you come here if nagrand is being mined like mad, as it will be sometimes.

Outstanding guide.

Gatherer is now sub-par for herb/mine farmers.  Your best bet is to go and get Cartographer and the Mine and/or herb modules for it - Then grab the Cartographer_Routes module, and you're set for some serious farming sessions.

It is a great mod. i downloaded cartographer, and it works alot better than gatherer.

Great idea and it does work - only thing I would add is the Hinterlands is great for mithril as well - joining the Mithril Order and doing the 3 quests from the guy in Booty Bay to get the insignia and then doing the 3 quests in Gadgetzan to get the trinket is a lot of mining, but worth it in the end.

i can't put my cartographer working i've downloaded it but .... what do i do next ??

Ok, here is a guide to using, and enabling your addons for those who have no clue how to do it.


Step 1: Download the desired addon (or addons) you want.

Step 2: Find the folder that contains Wow
                        Shortcuts for Windows: right click wow shortcut and click find target in properties.
                        Shortcuts for Mac: I just open finder and search for Wow

Step 3: once inside the wow folder open the folder entitled Interface

Step 4: drag desired addons into the folder named addons (make sure that they are unzipped first) if there is no folder named addons or addon, create one named addons and drag downloaded and unzipped files into it.

Step 5: open Wow and get into your character list. now click the red button named addons on the bottom left side of the screen and make sure the addon is clicked. if no addon shows then consider the following;
                                 
        1) did you unzip the folder first?
        2) try clicking on load outdated addons
        3) did you place them in the correct folder?

actually, from tin on, my guide is located in contested territory on, but a great place for Alliance miners looking for copper is the little mine below SW. right near the little town underneath it on the map houses a good amount of copper and the hills surrounding. but a great place for copper and tin for alliance is westfall. . . more copper than tin here so its a good transition cause redridge mountains has a lot of tin there.

You said so much in this small guide to what others have failed to do in a 5 page mining guide. Thank you.

I would also like to add for badlands that there is an ogre cave eventually throughout the circuit and there is about 3 nodes in there =D

where do i go to get the mod :gatherer?

curse.com

hey I have problem.

I DL gatherer, put the map in addons. but the problem is I have a mac, and I can't see the red button in the left corner at the character list.What to do now?

If you want to quickly skill up from about 250 to 300 do NOT go to Un'Goro. It's far better to go to searing gorge because there you find small thorium AND dark iron AND mithril AND true silver.

You find a lot of dark iron and even if you do not need it, it is good for rising your minng skill.

For tin a good place is the charred vale in stonetalon mountains and thousand needles. Over the past two days, I have found alot of nodes spawning there. For bronze, u don't mine it. U take copper and tin and smelt it into bronze. All the posts above are pretty right on as far as everything else.

I found a TON of Iron in Arathi. When i was finished with that area i have about 6-8 stacks of iron. Selling at 10g a pop not bad. :-)....Oh great guide as well good job.

i have downloaded Cartographer, but i cant see the mining veins..
why?
i hope you will answer

Neither Gatherer or Cartographer will show the nodes until you actually mine/loot them.

I use Cartographer, and have the Mining and Herbalism modules added to it.

http://files.wowace.com/cat-map.html

The add-on modules are needed to allow Cartographer to display the icons on the map for which kind of herb or ore you obtained at a given location.

ok thx..

What makes cartographer better then gatherer? I've got gatherer but i don't want to switch if its not much better especially when i have to loot the vains for new data :S

Awsome Guide, i will be using this for my up and coming 70 druid

What i done was similar...or the same idk lol

I downloaded Gatherer that did not help as much as i thought it would help but was ok. Then i downloaded Cathographer lol think i spelled that wrong..
and what i did with Cathographer was i located were all the viens i need, on the map example, i need Tin i looked on the map and showed all the Tin viens in 1000 neddels. so i turned off Cathographer and minied all the tin vien i can find then gatherer helped out heaps and thats how i got my mining to 368 in 5 hours easy. hope it works out :)

r the mods allowed wat if blizzard catches u with them will they ban u

no idea

No they will not ban you for using any addons.  They are not 'mods' at all.  They run using the built-in api's that Blizz has made available to developers. 

Any addon that works is "legal."  You may read about old addons that no longer work (think decursive and some functions in healbot) because Blizz removed the api's that they didn't want people to use to automate certain parts of gameplay.

Help !!!
    I am a lvl 51 Rogue and stuck at 300 minning.  I have gone to HonorHold and talked to the trainer but he will talk with me.  Nobody will speak with me at HH except the gryphon master.  Can anyone help? 

Thats because you need to be atleast lvl 55 to learn mining 300/375
And the Npc's will start to give you quests at lvl 58.
Youre there from a portal and not through the dark portal so i guess thats why they dont talk to you yet.

What I have found is in Arithi Basin has alot of good mining.  There is a cave by Hammerfall which houses Kobalds.  There are several nodes of Mithril, gold, iron, truesilver, and for a certain quest lesser bloodstone.  This place is not bad for lvling as well if your around the 30-35 lvl.  I use Gatherer and found Arithi to have a wide variety of ore.